It was only a short walk to Abel’s shop but it felt like a hundred miles to Bram. He could feel the eyes of all of King’s Port upon him and he didn’t like it. For a man who had spent most of his life unnoticed it was terribly uncomfortable to suddenly become the object of attention and speculation.
It was the speculation that he liked least of all. He fought an urge to turn and shout at the spectators that he had saved this girl from just the sort of lifestyle that they were at this very moment imagining.
Of course Bram would do or say no such thing; his boldness earlier in the day at the auction still fresh in his mind and he was not ready to make a spectacle of himself again so soon. With his thoughts elsewhere Bram barely noticed that his new companion had started to lag behind. At last, Bram looked over his shoulder and saw her hurrying to catch up. He was relieved to see she had not run away. In fact, he had already begun to feel protective toward this small foreign child. Odd, he thought as he paused to allow her to catch up.
Looking at her as he waited for her to join him he realized that she was limping, or at least walking strangely. He looked toward her feet and saw her toes peeking out from under her filthy skirt. She wore no foot coverings. He hadn’t noticed it when they left the dock; she had walked all this way on the rocky, burning streets without shoes. No wonder she was lagging behind.
He was a little perturbed that she hadn’t tried to show him that she was shoeless from the start, but he was more perturbed at himself for being so caught up in his own head that he hadn’t even noticed the poor child was struggling to walk. Bram gestured toward a shady area where the ground was cooler and he stooped to take a look at her feet.
Every time he went to move aside the bottom of her skirt so that he could examine her feet she would skip backward and press her hands down on to her skirt to deny him access. After foiling three attempts by Bram to look at her feet, she was finally backed up against the brick wall of Hawkin’s Tannery.
Relieved that she had nowhere to go this time, Bram once again reached to lift her skirt bottom, and as he grasped it he heard her let out a noise like “huhh.” It was the first sound she had made since she’d been in his presence and it caused him to drop her skirt and look up at her. He was stunned to see terror in her eyes and written all over her face. Her mouth was hanging open and her chest was heaving. “The girl thinks I’m going to rape her right here,” Bram realized with a start.
He quickly stood to his feet and walked a few steps away from her and started to shake his head no. His horror was nearly as great as the girl’s fear. For a few moments they just stared at one another. Then Bram started to gesture forcefully at his own foot. He pantomimed limping and then lifted his foot as if to examine what was causing the limp. Then he pointed to the girl’s own feet and once again lifted his own foot in an attempt to communicate his previous actions to her.
At last the fear started to ebb from her face and Bram was caught in a dilemma. If he were to attempt to look at her foot again, he may permanently lose the ground he had just made with her and her terror may return. Yet if he were to ignore her injured feet how were they to ever make it to Abel’s? He was too gentle a soul to knowingly cause her pain.
As Bram contemplated his next move he heard the sound of someone clearing their throat and then, “Excuse me, young man.”
Bram turned toward the sound of the voice. Before him stood a wrinkled little woman. Stooped with age she barely reached his elbow. Her head was covered with a stiff white cap. Peeking out from under it were wisps of thinning, white, wavy hair. Her eyes smiled as she looked up at him although the expression on her face was serious.
“May I be of some assistance?” she said.
“Ma’am?” Bram finally squeezed out.
“My son owns this here tannery,” she said gesturing over her shoulder. “I come on by every day to pass the time. Been watching you standing in the middle of the street going on five minutes now. Son, you look as if you’re caught between a rock and a hard place. So, I thought to myself, ‘Myrtle Hawkins, maybe there is somethin’ you can do to help this young feller out.’”
She stopped talking then. After a moment she broke eye contact and looked toward the girl who was still cowering against the tannery wall. The girl’s hands were twisted into her skirt and her eyes were as large as silver dollars as she watched the conversation between Bram and the old woman.
“Is this here the girl I heard about that caused all the commotion down by the docks?” Myrtle asked directly.
“Yes, ma’am, she is and I surely could use your assistance. I’m Reverend Abram Armstrong, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.” He went on to briefly explain how he had come into possession of this strange girl. Myrtle Hawkins listened intently, clucking her tongue occasionally and shaking her head at the appropriate times.
“You’re a good man, Reverend Armstrong, better than this here town has seen in a long while.” Bram’s embarrassment over his present predicament and his difficulty examining the girl’s feet was still acute and Myrtle seemed to grasp the complicated issue without Bram having to go into any more specific explanations.
Myrtle turned toward the girl and slowly shuffled her body toward her. The old woman moved with a pronounced limp, and each step was painful for Bram to watch. At last she stood in front of the girl. Bram could hear her talking quietly to her, telling her that she was going to just take a look at her feet and not hurt her. As Myrtle bent down to lift the skirt the girl finally seemed to realize what was happening. Until that moment the girl had been looking at Myrtle with confusion in her eyes, obviously trying to figure out where this woman fit into her terror. Yet as Myrtle had stood speaking to her, Bram could see the fear fade from the girl’s eyes. However, when Myrtle slowly and painfully bent to examine the child’s feet Bram saw a new form of horror fill the girl’s face.
All of the sudden the girl’s tongue was loosed and she started to speak in a foreign tongue that Bram and his elderly companion had no way of understanding, but her meaning was quite clear. The girl was absolutely not allowing this woman to look at her feet.
As Myrtle turned to look at Bram for some sort of guidance the girl fell to her knees and placed her forehead on Myrtle’s own feet and stayed there.
“Touch his feet, Hiren,” Mother hissed. Hiren was afraid of Mother’s wrath, but not as much as she was afraid of the old man seated in front of her.
Hiding among the colorful folds of her mother’s long skirt, five year old Hiren peaked out at the crowd surrounding her. Mother’s head was covered by the long thin piece of fabric that she always wore pulled over her face whenever Papa’s relatives were around, but Hiren could see her eyes and she knew Mother was serious.
“This is your family now, child, go and show respect to your elders by touching their feet.” Hiren continued to cry and she tried to lift her own saree to wipe her face but could not do so because she was burdened by the many layers of clothing and jewelry that she was forced to wear for this special occasion. Her wedding day.
Mother pried her from between her own legs and shoved her toward the stooped old man wearing a large red turban and seated on a cot in the shade of the one large tree. He smiled and it scared her all the more. One of his front two teeth on the top was missing and both of his bottom front teeth. It gave him a frightening look and Hiren swung her head from side to side wildly looking for Papa. She knew he would carry her away, but she could not find him.
At last she stood before the old man and knelt down before him. She bent her knees and touched her hands and forehead to his feet and then felt the old man’s hand on her head. He lifted her up and then patted her on the back, smiling all the while and scaring the breath out of the small child before him.
Her urge was to run away but then she heard the music. Loud drums beating and voices raised in song. A procession was coming toward them and her interest was piqued. She had forgotten all about the scary old man and the heat and the itchiness produced by her many layers of sarees.
Men and boys of all ages danced and shouted to the music. Every few minutes the procession would stop and the men would gather in a circle and the boldest would jump into the middle and dance to the drum beat amidst the jeers and claps of the surrounding boys and men. Leading the procession was a little boy being carried on the shoulders of the men who surrounded him. He was dressed all in white and had a large turban on his little head. Later when he was placed in front of Hiren she saw that he was just her own size. A child, and on his face was a look much like her own, wishing to be anywhere but here. His roaming hands pulled at his new clothing and scratched beneath his turban.
Hiren didn’t like him. He wouldn’t look at her and when she tried to speak to him, he ignored her. His eyes were caught up in all that was going on around him and he had no time for a talking to a little girl.
Finally Hiren had enough. She felt around on the ground surrounding her and her hands closed around a short stick. It was only about as long as her arm but as thick as two of her fingers together. Since everyone was watching the dancing and talking with one another no one noticed when Hiren lifted the stick into the air and brought it down swiftly on to the little boy’s head. He howled in anger, for surely it could not have hurt him with the thick strips of cotton turban on his head, but his mother and sisters came running. Hiren’s own mother ran toward her and pulled the stick from Hiren’s fist. Mother scolded her sharply and told her that she should not beat her husband. Both children were crying now and their mothers were frantically trying to calm them down.
“Akash, child, stop crying, look, look at the dancing,” the little boy’s mother was crooning to him. Hiren stopped crying to look at Akash’s mother. Hiren had seen her earlier in the day talking with Mother. She was surprised to discover that this girl was the boy’s mother. She looked so young, not old like Hiren’s mother. Akash’s mother looked like a child herself, like an older sister that Hiren could sometimes play with in the fields, not like a mother at all.
Looking at Akash’s mother now, Hiren remembered what her own mother had said earlier in the day about her. While sitting and talking with her sisters Mother had mentioned that Akash’s mother was a “second wife.” Hiren had asked at the time what a “second wife” was and was answered by laughs and giggles from her aunts and the women sitting with them. Mother only smiled and told her that she didn’t need to worry about it because she was a “first wife” and so she would always be in charge.
In charge of what, Hiren wanted to know. But Mother had turned back to her sisters and was no longer listening.
Myrtle Hawkins was not a woman to let a situation get out of her control and since the young Reverend seemed to be at a loss as to what to do Myrtle leaned down to draw the girl to her feet. At the touch of her hand on the girl’s shoulder, though, the child sat right up and looked at the old woman above her. Then Myrtle did something that she had not done in a long time. She lowered herself down as far as she could go and finally fell the last few inches with a plop on to the ground. Taking a moment to straighten her skirts and brush herself off she started to turn again toward the girl kneeling beside her. By this time Bram had reached her side to assist her, but Myrtle waved him off and with a flick of her wrist gestured for him to go back a ways.
Seeing the old woman sprawled ungracefully on the ground beside her brought the beginnings of a smile to the foreign girl’s lips. Myrtle saw it a moment before it disappeared and breathed a small sigh of relief.
One last time Myrtle reached out to lift the girl’s skirt enough to see her feet. This time Myrtle’s probing hands were met with no resistance from the girl. Once the feet were exposed Myrtle took one foot gently in her hands and brought it to herself.
The brown foot was filthy and not just from the dust of today. It seemed to be covered with weeks, if not month’s, worth of caked on dirt and grime. Myrtle turned it gently from side to side, her keen old eyes not missing a cut or bruise, her fingers gently probing for tender spots. Brushing away some of the loose dirt with her handkerchief, Myrtle could see where the thick skin of the big toe and heel had been eaten away, likely by rats on the ship, she thought to herself. She shook her head in pity.
Watching all this from a few feet away Bram thought that, judging from the girl’s wincing, there seemed to be quite a few tender places on her soles, probably from stepping on sharp or hot stones while trying to keep up with Bram’s frantic pace away from the port.
After slowly and carefully examining both feet, Myrtle gestured for Bram to come over. She lifted a small, liver spotted hand up to him and he lifted her to her feet. The girl stayed on the ground, both legs crossed in front of her and her hands folded tightly in her lap.
“Go on in the tannery now, Abram, and ask for a bucket of hot, not boiling, water. Tell the fellow in there that his mama is asking for it and he won’t give you no trouble. Not too hot, mind you.”
Bram did as he was told and Myrtle had the girl soak her feet in the water for what seemed like an eternity. He knew there was no way he’d make it back to Littleton tonight. He’d have to sleep another night at Abel’s and head for home in the morning. He silently prayed that Thea would understand.
